Hospitals short on doctors, but not of bosses – Mahony
THE master of the National Maternity Hospital, Dr Rhona Mahony, has hit out at the difficulties she faces hiring more doctors and other front-line staff while the number of HSE managers escalates.
Dr Mahony warned that hospitals are struggling to respond to the rise in patient demand – despite it being reported the number of senior managers in the wider health service has jumped by 40pc.
She also said many front-line workers are “becoming scared to practice medicine” due to the pressurised environment.
“If we do not support frontline staff, we do in turn not support our patients,” she said.
In an address to the MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Dr Mahony criticised what she described as the “traditional late December cash injections” into the country’s hospitals.
She also said it remains extremely difficult to this day to attract front-line staff, citing the lasting impact on the recently lifted health service moratorium.
“The blunt moratorium on staff recruitment was deeply damaging and to this day it remains extremely difficult to gain approval for medical consultant appointments and other front-line staff,” Dr Mahony told the summer school last night.
“Curiously, the opposite appears to be the case in the series of management administrations above the hospital.”
Dr Mahony said the layers of bureaucracy in the health service are slowing down the ability of hospital groups to make decisions to improve patient care.
She also defended the treatment of private patients in public hospitals, which has been the subject of controversy and debate in recent months.
“Every year, almost €700m is generated in income from private patients in public hospitals and in a highly expensive mechanism, the National Treatment Purchase Fund provides private care to public patients to relieve waiting lists,” she said.
Meanwhile, HSE chief Tony O’Brien told the gathering he hopes to bring in a system which would end the cycle of people at the very top of the health service always being targets when it comes to demands for accountability.
The Health Minister himself, or a national director, can be in the firing line as the public demands accountability, he added.